“You say well, in speaking of —–­, that no sufferings are so awful as those brought on by dissipation; alas!  I see the truth of this observation daily proved. —­and—­must have as weary and burdensome a life of it in waiting upon their unhappy brother.  It seems grievous, indeed, that those who have not sinned should suffer so largely.”

In fact, all their latter days blighted with the presence of cruel, shameful suffering,—­the premature deaths of two at least of the sisters,—­all the great possibilities of their earthly lives snapped short,—­may be dated from Midsummer 1845.

For the last three years of Branwell’s life, he took opium habitually, by way of stunning conscience; he drank moreover, whenever he could get the opportunity.  The reader may say that I have mentioned his tendency to intemperance long before.  It is true; but it did not become habitual, as far as I can learn, until after he was dismissed from his tutorship.  He took opium, because it made him forget for a time more effectually than drink; and, besides, it was more portable.  In procuring it he showed all the cunning of the opium-eater.  He would steal out while the family were at church—­to which he had professed himself too ill to go—­and manage to cajole the village druggist out of a lump; or, it might be, the carrier had unsuspiciously brought him some in a packet from a distance.  For some time before his death he had attacks of delirium tremens of the most frightful character; he slept in his father’s room, and he would sometimes declare that either he or his father should be dead before the morning.  The trembling sisters, sick with fright, would implore their father not to expose himself to this danger; but Mr. Bronte is no timid man, and perhaps he felt that he could possibly influence his son to some self-restraint, more by showing trust in him than by showing fear.  The sisters often listened for the report of a pistol in the dead of the night, till watchful eye and hearkening ear grew heavy and dull with the perpetual strain upon their nerves.  In the mornings young Bronte would saunter out, saying, with a drunkard’s incontinence of speech, “The poor old man and I have had a terrible night of it; he does his best—­the poor old man! but it’s all over with me.”

CHAPTER XIV

In the course of this sad autumn of 1845, a new interest came up; faint, indeed, and often lost sight of in the vivid pain and constant pressure of anxiety respecting their brother.  In the biographical notice of her sisters, which Charlotte prefixed to the edition of “Wuthering Heights” and “Agnes Grey,” published in 1850—­a piece of writing unique, as far as I know, in its pathos and its power—­she says:—­